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The letters from scrap tell tales of materials and objects. At Ecomondo's 2009 edition, Fiori Group presented an alphabet. 27 letters use prose and poetry to discover the secret lives of as many metal objects. With the help of the texts’ author Matteo Marchesini and the designers of the letters, Berger&Talleri, in Lettere dai rottami poetry meets scrap - to lend a voice to all materials passing through our plants every day.
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Detail of the exhibition
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"Every day, our plant sees mountains of scrap aluminium, copper, iron and other metals wax and wane, pending rebirth in a new guise. As we rummage through this limbo of used, broken and worn-out out stuff, we sometimes imagine the past and future of these discarded objects.
Last year, we presented “We’re all miners now”, a work that told the story of these mountains and cast them in the role of modern mines, where materials are not extracted but recycled, and where, by going back over their production chain, value is restored to things that have been discarded. We highlighted the positive aspects of this in the face of the big challenges facing the modern world: saving energy and resources, reducing environmental impact, sustainable development and de-growth. But this was just the beginning of a journey towards awareness.
We soon realised that material value is not everything, and that this instinctive desire to search for stories among the scrap is a more subtle and perhaps a more profound way of restoring value to that which our consumer society rejects, throws out and writes off as useless, different and dirty. So we commissioned a poet and two graphic designers to give this scrap an alphabet, words and a language with which to express itself. We listened in respectful silence and were surprised to find ourselves in front of an alphabet of 27 symbols made up of forgotten objects, each with its own tale to tell, and with fears and passions recounted in poetry and prose.
We see what we did as a little exercise in civility, an exercise which welcomes that which is different, gives it the chance to express itself, and gives it value beyond the accepted criteria of beauty and usefulness."
Chiara, Federica, Tamara. Fiori Group
From the book Letters from scrap, Fiori Group, 2009. -
Cover of "Lettere dai rottami"
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Lettere dai rottami, both exhibition and book, have been conceived and designed by Chialab (Beppe Chia and Alex Weste) and commissioned by Fiori Group (Tamara, Chiara, Federica). Matteo Marchesini wrote the texts, type design by Berger&Talleri. Public relations by Mariagrazia Canu.
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Some impressions of the exhibition "Lettere dai rottami"
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Fiori Group: we collect and recycle ferrous and non-ferrous materials, lead batteries, steel packaging and industrial scrap.
Fiori Group is approved by CNA and COBAT.
>>> download booklet (12,7 mb)
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37% of worldwide steel production comes from recycled materials. A significant saving of energy and natural resources.
World Steel Association, 2006
